1. Field of Invention
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for providing multimedia conferencing services with selective performance parameters.
2. Description of Related Art
Multimedia conferencing over communication networks to a plurality of parties is generally known in the art. Multimedia conferencing in packet-switched networks such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), frame relay, and the like, is well known, as is multimedia conferencing in circuit-switched networks such as ISDN, PSTN and the like. However, in a conventional multi-party multimedia conferencing service, the service provided to all parties is the same and is based on the lowest common denominator of the performance capabilities of the parties. That is, the highest quality of the multimedia conference service provided to all the parties of the conference is limited to the highest quality performance capability of the least capable party. Thus, new technology is needed to increase the quality of multimedia conferencing for multiple parties to exceed the above limitation.
The invention provides a multimedia conferencing service to multiple parties where the performance of the service for each of the parties may be different. The performance for each party is selected based on the abilities of the device and/or the preferences of the party. When an operator of a source user device enters a destination address for another user device, data such as an identity of a source user device, destination user devices and performance parameters selected at the source user device are specified.
When the signals are received, a multimedia bridge retrieves related information from a database corresponding to the identity of the source user device and/or the destination user devices. The information may include default performance parameters for communicating with the user devices, such as bandwidth, allowable delay, allowable jitter, allowable packet losses and the like, and may include user-selected preferred performance parameters for use during the multimedia conference.
Based on the information retrieved and the data received, the multimedia bridge sends boot signals for resolving information or conferencing to the selected destination user devices involved in the multimedia conference. If alternate performance parameters are selected at one of the destination user devices, that information is sent to the multimedia bridge for use during the remainder of the multimedia conference.
Once the multimedia bridge receives the default and/or alternate performance parameters for each user device, the selective performance parameters for communicating between each user device are determined. The multimedia bridge enables the multimedia conferencing service to provide communication between the user devices using different selective performance parameters for each user device for the same multimedia conference call.
These and other features and advantages will be described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.